Evening Devotion

A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.
¹ O LORD, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me;
² many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah
³ But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.
⁴ I cried aloud to the LORD, and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah
⁵ I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.
⁶ I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.
⁷ Arise, O LORD! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked.
⁸ Salvation belongs to the LORD; your blessing be on your people! Selah (ESV)

To the choirmaster. A Maskil of David, when Doeg, the Edomite, came and told Saul, “David has come to the house of Ahimelech.”
¹ Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of God endures all the day.
² Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit.
³ You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right. Selah
⁴ You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue.
⁵ But God will break you down forever; he will snatch and tear you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
⁶ The righteous shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him, saying,
⁷ “See the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction!”
⁸ But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever.
⁹ I will thank you forever, because you have done it. I will wait for your name, for it is good, in the presence of the godly. (ESV)

²⁸ So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther,
²⁹ but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them.
³⁰ When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them.
³¹ And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. (ESV)

¹ Draw near, O nations, to hear, and give attention, O peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that comes from it.
² For the LORD is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their host; he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over for slaughter.

¹ Then the LORD said to me, “Take a large tablet and write on it in common characters, ‘Belonging to Maher-shalal-hash-baz.’
² And I will get reliable witnesses, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah, to attest for me.”
³ And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. Then the LORD said to me, “Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz;
⁴ for before the boy knows how to cry ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria.”
⁵ The LORD spoke to me again:
⁶ “Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah that flow gently, and rejoice over Rezin and the son of Remaliah,
⁷ therefore, behold, the Lord is bringing up against them the waters of the River, mighty and many, the king of Assyria and all his glory. And it will rise over all its channels and go over all its banks,
⁸ and it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass on, reaching even to the neck, and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.”
⁹ Be broken, you peoples, and be shattered; give ear, all you far countries; strap on your armor and be shattered; strap on your armor and be shattered.
¹⁰ Take counsel together, but it will come to nothing; speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us.
¹¹ For the LORD spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying:
¹² “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread.
¹³ But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
¹⁴ And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
¹⁵ And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.”
¹⁶ Bind up the testimony; seal the teaching among my disciples.
¹⁷ I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him.
¹⁸ Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the LORD of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.
¹⁹ And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?
²⁰ To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.
²¹ They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God, and turn their faces upward.
²² And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness.
¹ But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
² The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.
³ You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
⁴ For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
⁵ For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.
⁶ For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷ Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
⁸ The Lord has sent a word against Jacob, and it will fall on Israel;
⁹ and all the people will know, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, who say in pride and in arrogance of heart:
¹⁰ “The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place.”
¹¹ But the LORD raises the adversaries of Rezin against him, and stirs up his enemies.
¹² The Syrians on the east and the Philistines on the west devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.
¹³ The people did not turn to him who struck them, nor inquire of the LORD of hosts.
¹⁴ So the LORD cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed in one day—
¹⁵ the elder and honored man is the head, and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail;
¹⁶ for those who guide this people have been leading them astray, and those who are guided by them are swallowed up.
¹⁷ Therefore the Lord does not rejoice over their young men, and has no compassion on their fatherless and widows; for everyone is godless and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.
¹⁸ For wickedness burns like a fire; it consumes briers and thorns; it kindles the thickets of the forest, and they roll upward in a column of smoke.
¹⁹ Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts the land is scorched, and the people are like fuel for the fire; no one spares another.
²⁰ They slice meat on the right, but are still hungry, and they devour on the left, but are not satisfied; each devours the flesh of his own arm,
²¹ Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim devours Manasseh; together they are against Judah. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.
¹ Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression,
² to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!
³ What will you do on the day of punishment, in the ruin that will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth?
⁴ Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.
⁵ Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury!
⁶ Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
⁷ But he does not so intend, and his heart does not so think; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few;
⁸ for he says: “Are not my commanders all kings?
⁹ Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?
¹⁰ As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols, whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
¹¹ shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I have done to Samaria and her images?”
¹² When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes.
¹³ For he says: “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I remove the boundaries of peoples, and plunder their treasures; like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones.
¹⁴ My hand has found like a nest the wealth of the peoples; and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken, so I have gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved a wing or opened the mouth or chirped.”
¹⁵ Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it? As if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!
¹⁶ Therefore the Lord GOD of hosts will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors, and under his glory a burning will be kindled, like the burning of fire.
¹⁷ The light of Israel will become a fire, and his Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour his thorns and briers in one day.
¹⁸ The glory of his forest and of his fruitful land the LORD will destroy, both soul and body, and it will be as when a sick man wastes away.
¹⁹ The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down.
²⁰ In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
²¹ A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.
²² For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness.
²³ For the Lord GOD of hosts will make a full end, as decreed, in the midst of all the earth.
²⁴ Therefore thus says the Lord GOD of hosts: “O my people, who dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrians when they strike with the rod and lift up their staff against you as the Egyptians did.
²⁵ For in a very little while my fury will come to an end, and my anger will be directed to their destruction.
²⁶ And the LORD of hosts will wield against them a whip, as when he struck Midian at the rock of Oreb. And his staff will be over the sea, and he will lift it as he did in Egypt.
²⁷ And in that day his burden will depart from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck; and the yoke will be broken because of the fat.”
²⁸ He has come to Aiath; he has passed through Migron; at Michmash he stores his baggage;
²⁹ they have crossed over the pass; at Geba they lodge for the night; Ramah trembles; Gibeah of Saul has fled.
³⁰ Cry aloud, O daughter of Gallim! Give attention, O Laishah! O poor Anathoth!
³¹ Madmenah is in flight; the inhabitants of Gebim flee for safety.
³² This very day he will halt at Nob; he will shake his fist at the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.
³³ Behold, the Lord GOD of hosts will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the great in height will be hewn down, and the lofty will be brought low.
³⁴ He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an axe, and Lebanon will fall by the Majestic One.
¹ There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
² And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
³ And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
⁴ but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
⁵ Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
⁶ The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
⁷ The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
⁸ The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
⁹ They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
¹⁰ In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.
¹¹ In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea.
¹² He will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
¹³ The jealousy of Ephraim shall depart, and those who harass Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not harass Ephraim.
¹⁴ But they shall swoop down on the shoulder of the Philistines in the west, and together they shall plunder the people of the east. They shall put out their hand against Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites shall obey them.
¹⁵ And the LORD will utterly destroy the tongue of the Sea of Egypt, and will wave his hand over the River with his scorching breath, and strike it into seven channels, and he will lead people across in sandals.
¹⁶ And there will be a highway from Assyria for the remnant that remains of his people, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.
¹ You will say in that day: “I will give thanks to you, O LORD, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me.
² “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”
³ With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
⁴ And you will say in that day: “Give thanks to the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted.
⁵ “Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth.
⁶ Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”
¹ The oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.
² On a bare hill raise a signal; cry aloud to them; wave the hand for them to enter the gates of the nobles.
³ I myself have commanded my consecrated ones, and have summoned my mighty men to execute my anger, my proudly exulting ones.
⁴ The sound of a tumult is on the mountains as of a great multitude! The sound of an uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathering together! The LORD of hosts is mustering a host for battle.
⁵ They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the LORD and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.
⁶ Wail, for the day of the LORD is near; as destruction from the Almighty it will come!
⁷ Therefore all hands will be feeble, and every human heart will melt.
⁸ They will be dismayed: pangs and agony will seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at one another; their faces will be aflame.
⁹ Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it.
¹⁰ For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.
¹¹ I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.
¹² I will make people more rare than fine gold, and mankind than the gold of Ophir.
¹³ Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the LORD of hosts in the day of his fierce anger.
¹⁴ And like a hunted gazelle, or like sheep with none to gather them, each will turn to his own people, and each will flee to his own land.
¹⁵ Whoever is found will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall by the sword.
¹⁶ Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished.
¹⁷ Behold, I am stirring up the Medes against them, who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold.
¹⁸ Their bows will slaughter the young men; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; their eyes will not pity children.
¹⁹ And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendor and pomp of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them.
²⁰ It will never be inhabited or lived in for all generations; no Arab will pitch his tent there; no shepherds will make their flocks lie down there.
²¹ But wild animals will lie down there, and their houses will be full of howling creatures; there ostriches will dwell, and there wild goats will dance.
²² Hyenas will cry in its towers, and jackals in the pleasant palaces; its time is close at hand and its days will not be prolonged.
¹ For the LORD will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land, and sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob.
² And the peoples will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them in the LORD’s land as male and female slaves. They will take captive those who were their captors, and rule over those who oppressed them.
³ When the LORD has given you rest from your pain and turmoil and the hard service with which you were made to serve,
⁴ you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: “How the oppressor has ceased, the insolent fury ceased!
⁵ The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of rulers,
⁶ that struck the peoples in wrath with unceasing blows, that ruled the nations in anger with unrelenting persecution.
⁷ The whole earth is at rest and quiet; they break forth into singing.
⁸ The cypresses rejoice at you, the cedars of Lebanon, saying, ‘Since you were laid low, no woodcutter comes up against us.’
⁹ Sheol beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come; it rouses the shades to greet you, all who were leaders of the earth; it raises from their thrones all who were kings of the nations.
¹⁰ All of them will answer and say to you: ‘You too have become as weak as we! You have become like us!’
¹¹ Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, the sound of your harps; maggots are laid as a bed beneath you, and worms are your covers.
¹² “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!
¹³ You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north;
¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’
¹⁵ But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.
¹⁶ Those who see you will stare at you and ponder over you: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms,
¹⁷ who made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities, who did not let his prisoners go home?’
¹⁸ All the kings of the nations lie in glory, each in his own tomb;
¹⁹ but you are cast out, away from your grave, like a loathed branch, clothed with the slain, those pierced by the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit, like a dead body trampled underfoot.
²⁰ You will not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land, you have slain your people. “May the offspring of evildoers nevermore be named!
²¹ Prepare slaughter for his sons because of the guilt of their fathers, lest they rise and possess the earth, and fill the face of the world with cities.”
²² “I will rise up against them,” declares the LORD of hosts, “and will cut off from Babylon name and remnant, descendants and posterity,” declares the LORD.
²³ “And I will make it a possession of the hedgehog, and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” declares the LORD of hosts.
²⁴ The LORD of hosts has sworn: “As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand,
²⁵ that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and on my mountains trample him underfoot; and his yoke shall depart from them, and his burden from their shoulder.”
²⁶ This is the purpose that is purposed concerning the whole earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations.
²⁷ For the LORD of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?
²⁸ In the year that King Ahaz died came this oracle:
²⁹ Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of you, that the rod that struck you is broken, for from the serpent’s root will come forth an adder, and its fruit will be a flying fiery serpent.
³⁰ And the firstborn of the poor will graze, and the needy lie down in safety; but I will kill your root with famine, and your remnant it will slay.
³¹ Wail, O gate; cry out, O city; melt in fear, O Philistia, all of you! For smoke comes out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks.
³² What will one answer the messengers of the nation? “The LORD has founded Zion, and in her the afflicted of his people find refuge.”
¹ An oracle concerning Moab. Because Ar of Moab is laid waste in a night, Moab is undone; because Kir of Moab is laid waste in a night, Moab is undone.
² He has gone up to the temple, and to Dibon, to the high places to weep; over Nebo and over Medeba Moab wails. On every head is baldness; every beard is shorn;
³ in the streets they wear sackcloth; on the housetops and in the squares everyone wails and melts in tears.
⁴ Heshbon and Elealeh cry out; their voice is heard as far as Jahaz; therefore the armed men of Moab cry aloud; his soul trembles.
⁵ My heart cries out for Moab; her fugitives flee to Zoar, to Eglath-shelishiyah. For at the ascent of Luhith they go up weeping; on the road to Horonaim they raise a cry of destruction;
⁶ the waters of Nimrim are a desolation; the grass is withered, the vegetation fails, the greenery is no more.
⁷ Therefore the abundance they have gained and what they have laid up they carry away over the Brook of the Willows.
⁸ For a cry has gone around the land of Moab; her wailing reaches to Eglaim; her wailing reaches to Beer-elim.
⁹ For the waters of Dibon are full of blood; for I will bring upon Dibon even more, a lion for those of Moab who escape, for the remnant of the land.
¹ Send the lamb to the ruler of the land, from Sela, by way of the desert, to the mount of the daughter of Zion.
² Like fleeing birds, like a scattered nest, so are the daughters of Moab at the fords of the Arnon.
³ “Give counsel; grant justice; make your shade like night at the height of noon; shelter the outcasts; do not reveal the fugitive;
⁴ let the outcasts of Moab sojourn among you; be a shelter to them from the destroyer. When the oppressor is no more, and destruction has ceased, and he who tramples underfoot has vanished from the land,
⁵ then a throne will be established in steadfast love, and on it will sit in faithfulness in the tent of David one who judges and seeks justice and is swift to do righteousness.”
⁶ We have heard of the pride of Moab— how proud he is!— of his arrogance, his pride, and his insolence; in his idle boasting he is not right.
⁷ Therefore let Moab wail for Moab, let everyone wail. Mourn, utterly stricken, for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth.
⁸ For the fields of Heshbon languish, and the vine of Sibmah; the lords of the nations have struck down its branches, which reached to Jazer and strayed to the desert; its shoots spread abroad and passed over the sea.
⁹ Therefore I weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of Sibmah; I drench you with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh; for over your summer fruit and your harvest the shout has ceased.
¹⁰ And joy and gladness are taken away from the fruitful field, and in the vineyards no songs are sung, no cheers are raised; no treader treads out wine in the presses; I have put an end to the shouting.
¹¹ Therefore my inner parts moan like a lyre for Moab, and my inmost self for Kir-hareseth.
¹² And when Moab presents himself, when he wearies himself on the high place, when he comes to his sanctuary to pray, he will not prevail.
¹³ This is the word that the LORD spoke concerning Moab in the past.
¹⁴ But now the LORD has spoken, saying, “In three years, like the years of a hired worker, the glory of Moab will be brought into contempt, in spite of all his great multitude, and those who remain will be very few and feeble.”
¹ An oracle concerning Damascus. Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins.
² The cities of Aroer are deserted; they will be for flocks, which will lie down, and none will make them afraid.
³ The fortress will disappear from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus; and the remnant of Syria will be like the glory of the children of Israel, declares the LORD of hosts.
⁴ And in that day the glory of Jacob will be brought low, and the fat of his flesh will grow lean.
⁵ And it shall be as when the reaper gathers standing grain and his arm harvests the ears, and as when one gleans the ears of grain in the Valley of Rephaim.
⁶ Gleanings will be left in it, as when an olive tree is beaten— two or three berries in the top of the highest bough, four or five on the branches of a fruit tree, declares the LORD God of Israel.
⁷ In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel.
⁸ He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the Asherim or the altars of incense.
⁹ In that day their strong cities will be like the deserted places of the wooded heights and the hilltops, which they deserted because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation.
¹⁰ For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge; therefore, though you plant pleasant plants and sow the vine-branch of a stranger,
¹¹ though you make them grow on the day that you plant them, and make them blossom in the morning that you sow, yet the harvest will flee away in a day of grief and incurable pain.
¹² Ah, the thunder of many peoples; they thunder like the thundering of the sea! Ah, the roar of nations; they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!
¹³ The nations roar like the roaring of many waters, but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away, chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind and whirling dust before the storm.
¹⁴ At evening time, behold, terror! Before morning, they are no more! This is the portion of those who loot us, and the lot of those who plunder us.
¹ Ah, land of whirring wings that is beyond the rivers of Cush,
² which sends ambassadors by the sea, in vessels of papyrus on the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide.
³ All you inhabitants of the world, you who dwell on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains, look! When a trumpet is blown, hear!
⁴ For thus the LORD said to me: “I will quietly look from my dwelling like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
⁵ For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks, and the spreading branches he lops off and clears away.
⁶ They shall all of them be left to the birds of prey of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth. And the birds of prey will summer on them, and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.
⁷ At that time tribute will be brought to the LORD of hosts from a people tall and smooth, from a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide, to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the LORD of hosts.
¹ An oracle concerning Egypt. Behold, the LORD is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt; and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.
² And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight, each against another and each against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom;
³ and the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out, and I will confound their counsel; and they will inquire of the idols and the sorcerers, and the mediums and the necromancers;
⁴ and I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a hard master, and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the Lord GOD of hosts.
⁵ And the waters of the sea will be dried up, and the river will be dry and parched,
⁶ and its canals will become foul, and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up, reeds and rushes will rot away.
⁷ There will be bare places by the Nile, on the brink of the Nile, and all that is sown by the Nile will be parched, will be driven away, and will be no more.
⁸ The fishermen will mourn and lament, all who cast a hook in the Nile; and they will languish who spread nets on the water.
⁹ The workers in combed flax will be in despair, and the weavers of white cotton.
¹⁰ Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed, and all who work for pay will be grieved.
¹¹ The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish; the wisest counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel. How can you say to Pharaoh, “I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings”?
¹² Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you that they might know what the LORD of hosts has purposed against Egypt.
¹³ The princes of Zoan have become fools, and the princes of Memphis are deluded; those who are the cornerstones of her tribes have made Egypt stagger.
¹⁴ The LORD has mingled within her a spirit of confusion, and they will make Egypt stagger in all its deeds, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit.
¹⁵ And there will be nothing for Egypt that head or tail, palm branch or reed, may do.
¹⁶ In that day the Egyptians will be like women, and tremble with fear before the hand that the LORD of hosts shakes over them.
¹⁷ And the land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians. Everyone to whom it is mentioned will fear because of the purpose that the LORD of hosts has purposed against them.
¹⁸ In that day there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the LORD of hosts. One of these will be called the City of Destruction.
¹⁹ In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the LORD at its border.
²⁰ It will be a sign and a witness to the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt. When they cry to the LORD because of oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and deliver them.
²¹ And the LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the LORD in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make vows to the LORD and perform them.
²² And the LORD will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will return to the LORD, and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them.
²³ In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.
²⁴ In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth,
²⁵ whom the LORD of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.”
¹ In the year that the commander in chief, who was sent by Sargon the king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and fought against it and captured it—
² at that time the LORD spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go, and loose the sackcloth from your waist and take off your sandals from your feet,” and he did so, walking naked and barefoot.
³ Then the LORD said, “As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Cush,
⁴ so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptian captives and the Cushite exiles, both the young and the old, naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered, the nakedness of Egypt.
⁵ Then they shall be dismayed and ashamed because of Cush their hope and of Egypt their boast.
⁶ And the inhabitants of this coastland will say in that day, ‘Behold, this is what has happened to those in whom we hoped and to whom we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria! And we, how shall we escape?’”
¹ The oracle concerning the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the Negeb sweep on, it comes from the wilderness, from a terrible land.
² A stern vision is told to me; the traitor betrays, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, O Elam; lay siege, O Media; all the sighing she has caused I bring to an end.
³ Therefore my loins are filled with anguish; pangs have seized me, like the pangs of a woman in labor; I am bowed down so that I cannot hear; I am dismayed so that I cannot see.
⁴ My heart staggers; horror has appalled me; the twilight I longed for has been turned for me into trembling.
⁵ They prepare the table, they spread the rugs, they eat, they drink. Arise, O princes; oil the shield!
⁶ For thus the Lord said to me: “Go, set a watchman; let him announce what he sees.
⁷ When he sees riders, horsemen in pairs, riders on donkeys, riders on camels, let him listen diligently, very diligently.”
⁸ Then he who saw cried out: “Upon a watchtower I stand, O Lord, continually by day, and at my post I am stationed whole nights.
⁹ And behold, here come riders, horsemen in pairs!” And he answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the carved images of her gods he has shattered to the ground.”
¹⁰ O my threshed and winnowed one, what I have heard from the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, I announce to you.
¹¹ The oracle concerning Dumah. One is calling to me from Seir, “Watchman, what time of the night? Watchman, what time of the night?”
¹² The watchman says: “Morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire; come back again.”
¹³ The oracle concerning Arabia. In the thickets in Arabia you will lodge, O caravans of Dedanites.
¹⁴ To the thirsty bring water; meet the fugitive with bread, O inhabitants of the land of Tema.
¹⁵ For they have fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the press of battle.
¹⁶ For thus the Lord said to me, “Within a year, according to the years of a hired worker, all the glory of Kedar will come to an end.
¹⁷ And the remainder of the archers of the mighty men of the sons of Kedar will be few, for the LORD, the God of Israel, has spoken.”
¹ The oracle concerning the valley of vision. What do you mean that you have gone up, all of you, to the housetops,
² you who are full of shoutings, tumultuous city, exultant town? Your slain are not slain with the sword or dead in battle.
³ All your leaders have fled together; without the bow they were captured. All of you who were found were captured, though they had fled far away.
⁴ Therefore I said: “Look away from me; let me weep bitter tears; do not labor to comfort me concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
⁵ For the Lord GOD of hosts has a day of tumult and trampling and confusion in the valley of vision, a battering down of walls and a shouting to the mountains.
⁶ And Elam bore the quiver with chariots and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the shield.
⁷ Your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen took their stand at the gates.
⁸ He has taken away the covering of Judah. In that day you looked to the weapons of the House of the Forest,
⁹ and you saw that the breaches of the city of David were many. You collected the waters of the lower pool,
¹⁰ and you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall.
¹¹ You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you did not look to him who did it, or see him who planned it long ago.
¹² In that day the Lord GOD of hosts called for weeping and mourning, for baldness and wearing sackcloth;
¹³ and behold, joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
¹⁴ The LORD of hosts has revealed himself in my ears: “Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for you until you die,” says the Lord GOD of hosts.
¹⁵ Thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him:
¹⁶ What have you to do here, and whom have you here, that you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you who cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock?
¹⁷ Behold, the LORD will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you
¹⁸ and whirl you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a wide land. There you shall die, and there shall be your glorious chariots, you shame of your master’s house.
¹⁹ I will thrust you from your office, and you will be pulled down from your station.
²⁰ In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,
²¹ and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.
²² And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.
²³ And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house.
²⁴ And they will hang on him the whole honor of his father’s house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons.
²⁵ In that day, declares the LORD of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a secure place will give way, and it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on it will be cut off, for the LORD has spoken.”
¹ The oracle concerning Tyre. Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for Tyre is laid waste, without house or harbor! From the land of Cyprus it is revealed to them.
² Be still, O inhabitants of the coast; the merchants of Sidon, who cross the sea, have filled you.
³ And on many waters your revenue was the grain of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile; you were the merchant of the nations.
⁴ Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying: “I have neither labored nor given birth, I have neither reared young men nor brought up young women.”
⁵ When the report comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish over the report about Tyre.
⁶ Cross over to Tarshish; wail, O inhabitants of the coast!
⁷ Is this your exultant city whose origin is from days of old, whose feet carried her to settle far away?
⁸ Who has purposed this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored of the earth?
⁹ The LORD of hosts has purposed it, to defile the pompous pride of all glory, to dishonor all the honored of the earth.
¹⁰ Cross over your land like the Nile, O daughter of Tarshish; there is no restraint anymore.
¹¹ He has stretched out his hand over the sea; he has shaken the kingdoms; the LORD has given command concerning Canaan to destroy its strongholds.
¹² And he said: “You will no more exult, O oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon; arise, cross over to Cyprus, even there you will have no rest.”
¹³ Behold the land of the Chaldeans! This is the people that was not; Assyria destined it for wild beasts. They erected their siege towers, they stripped her palaces bare, they made her a ruin.
¹⁴ Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is laid waste.
¹⁵ In that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:
¹⁶ “Take a harp; go about the city, O forgotten prostitute! Make sweet melody; sing many songs, that you may be remembered.”
¹⁷ At the end of seventy years, the LORD will visit Tyre, and she will return to her wages and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.
¹⁸ Her merchandise and her wages will be holy to the LORD. It will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the LORD.
¹ Behold, the LORD will empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.
² And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the debtor.
³ The earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered; for the LORD has spoken this word.
⁴ The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and withers; the highest people of the earth languish.
⁵ The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.
⁶ Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched, and few men are left.
⁷ The wine mourns, the vine languishes, all the merry-hearted sigh.
⁸ The mirth of the tambourines is stilled, the noise of the jubilant has ceased, the mirth of the lyre is stilled.
⁹ No more do they drink wine with singing; strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.
¹⁰ The wasted city is broken down; every house is shut up so that none can enter.
¹¹ There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine; all joy has grown dark; the gladness of the earth is banished.
¹² Desolation is left in the city; the gates are battered into ruins.
¹³ For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done.
¹⁴ They lift up their voices, they sing for joy; over the majesty of the LORD they shout from the west.
¹⁵ Therefore in the east give glory to the LORD; in the coastlands of the sea, give glory to the name of the LORD, the God of Israel.
¹⁶ From the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise, of glory to the Righteous One. But I say, “I waste away, I waste away. Woe is me! For the traitors have betrayed, with betrayal the traitors have betrayed.”
¹⁷ Terror and the pit and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth!
¹⁸ He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit, and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble.
¹⁹ The earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart, the earth is violently shaken.
²⁰ The earth staggers like a drunken man; it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again.
²¹ On that day the LORD will punish the host of heaven, in heaven, and the kings of the earth, on the earth.
²² They will be gathered together as prisoners in a pit; they will be shut up in a prison, and after many days they will be punished.
²³ Then the moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed, for the LORD of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and his glory will be before his elders.
¹ O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you; I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure.
² For you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin; the foreigners’ palace is a city no more; it will never be rebuilt.
³ Therefore strong peoples will glorify you; cities of ruthless nations will fear you.
⁴ For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat; for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,
⁵ like heat in a dry place. You subdue the noise of the foreigners; as heat by the shade of a cloud, so the song of the ruthless is put down.
⁶ On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
⁷ And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.
⁸ He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.
⁹ It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
¹⁰ For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain, and Moab shall be trampled down in his place, as straw is trampled down in a dunghill.
¹¹ And he will spread out his hands in the midst of it as a swimmer spreads his hands out to swim, but the LORD will lay low his pompous pride together with the skill of his hands.
¹² And the high fortifications of his walls he will bring down, lay low, and cast to the ground, to the dust.
¹ In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: “We have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks.
² Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.
³ You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.
⁴ Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.
⁵ For he has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust.
⁶ The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.”
⁷ The path of the righteous is level; you make level the way of the righteous.
⁸ In the path of your judgments, O LORD, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.
⁹ My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
¹⁰ If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the LORD.
¹¹ O LORD, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed. Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.
¹² O LORD, you will ordain peace for us, for you have indeed done for us all our works.
¹³ O LORD our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone we bring to remembrance.
¹⁴ They are dead, they will not live; they are shades, they will not arise; to that end you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them.
¹⁵ But you have increased the nation, O LORD, you have increased the nation; you are glorified; you have enlarged all the borders of the land.
¹⁶ O LORD, in distress they sought you; they poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them.
¹⁷ Like a pregnant woman who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth, so were we because of you, O LORD;
¹⁸ we were pregnant, we writhed, but we have given birth to wind. We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
¹⁹ Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.
²⁰ Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by.
²¹ For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.
¹ In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
² In that day, “A pleasant vineyard, sing of it!
³ I, the LORD, am its keeper; every moment I water it. Lest anyone punish it, I keep it night and day;
⁴ I have no wrath. Would that I had thorns and briers to battle! I would march against them, I would burn them up together.
⁵ Or let them lay hold of my protection, let them make peace with me, let them make peace with me.”
⁶ In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit.
⁷ Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them? Or have they been slain as their slayers were slain?
⁸ Measure by measure, by exile you contended with them; he removed them with his fierce breath in the day of the east wind.
⁹ Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for, and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin: when he makes all the stones of the altars like chalkstones crushed to pieces, no Asherim or incense altars will remain standing.
¹⁰ For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness; there the calf grazes; there it lies down and strips its branches.
¹¹ When its boughs are dry, they are broken; women come and make a fire of them. For this is a people without discernment; therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them; he who formed them will show them no favor.
¹² In that day from the river Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt the LORD will thresh out the grain, and you will be gleaned one by one, O people of Israel.
¹³ And in that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
¹ Ah, the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim, and the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley of those overcome with wine!
² Behold, the Lord has one who is mighty and strong; like a storm of hail, a destroying tempest, like a storm of mighty, overflowing waters, he casts down to the earth with his hand.
³ The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim will be trodden underfoot;
⁴ and the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley, will be like a first-ripe fig before the summer: when someone sees it, he swallows it as soon as it is in his hand.
⁵ In that day the LORD of hosts will be a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty, to the remnant of his people,
⁶ and a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.
⁷ These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink; the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are swallowed by wine, they stagger with strong drink, they reel in vision, they stumble in giving judgment.
⁸ For all tables are full of filthy vomit, with no space left.
⁹ “To whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast?
¹⁰ For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.”
¹¹ For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people,
¹² to whom he has said, “This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose”; yet they would not hear.
¹³ And the word of the LORD will be to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
¹⁴ Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scoffers, who rule this people in Jerusalem!
¹⁵ Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement, when the overwhelming whip passes through it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter”;
¹⁶ therefore thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’
¹⁷ And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plumb line; and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter.”
¹⁸ Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten down by it.
¹⁹ As often as it passes through it will take you; for morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night; and it will be sheer terror to understand the message.
²⁰ For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in.
²¹ For the LORD will rise up as on Mount Perazim; as in the Valley of Gibeon he will be roused; to do his deed—strange is his deed! and to work his work—alien is his work!
²² Now therefore do not scoff, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord GOD of hosts against the whole land.
²³ Give ear, and hear my voice; give attention, and hear my speech.
²⁴ Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground?
²⁵ When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, sow cumin, and put in wheat in rows and barley in its proper place, and emmer as the border?
²⁶ For he is rightly instructed; his God teaches him.
²⁷ Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cart wheel rolled over cumin, but dill is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod.
²⁸ Does one crush grain for bread? No, he does not thresh it forever; when he drives his cart wheel over it with his horses, he does not crush it.
²⁹ This also comes from the LORD of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.
¹ Ah, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts run their round.
² Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be moaning and lamentation, and she shall be to me like an Ariel.
³ And I will encamp against you all around, and will besiege you with towers and I will raise siegeworks against you.
⁴ And you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak, and from the dust your speech will be bowed down; your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost, and from the dust your speech shall whisper.
⁵ But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff. And in an instant, suddenly,
⁶ you will be visited by the LORD of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.
⁷ And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her, shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.
⁸ As when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating, and awakes with his hunger not satisfied, or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he is drinking, and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched, so shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion.
⁹ Astonish yourselves and be astonished; blind yourselves and be blind! Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink!
¹⁰ For the LORD has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes (the prophets), and covered your heads (the seers).
¹¹ And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.”
¹² And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot read.”
¹³ And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
¹⁴ therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
¹⁵ Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”
¹⁶ You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?
¹⁷ Is it not yet a very little while until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest?
¹⁸ In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.
¹⁹ The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD, and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
²⁰ For the ruthless shall come to nothing and the scoffer cease, and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off,
²¹ who by a word make a man out to be an offender, and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate, and with an empty plea turn aside him who is in the right.
²² Therefore thus says the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob: “Jacob shall no more be ashamed, no more shall his face grow pale.
²³ For when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in his midst, they will sanctify my name; they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
²⁴ And those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding, and those who murmur will accept instruction.”
¹ “Ah, stubborn children,” declares the LORD, “who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin;
² who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!
³ Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.
⁴ For though his officials are at Zoan and his envoys reach Hanes,
⁵ everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace.”
⁶ An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent, they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people that cannot profit them.
⁷ Egypt’s help is worthless and empty; therefore I have called her “Rahab who sits still.”
⁸ And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever.
⁹ For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the LORD;
¹⁰ who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions,
¹¹ leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”
¹² Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them,
¹³ therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant;
¹⁴ and its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”
¹⁵ For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling,
¹⁶ and you said, “No! We will flee upon horses”; therefore you shall flee away; and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”; therefore your pursuers shall be swift.
¹⁷ A thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you shall flee, till you are left like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain, like a signal on a hill.
¹⁸ Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.
¹⁹ For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you.
²⁰ And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher.
²¹ And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.
²² Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”
²³ And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures,
²⁴ and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork.
²⁵ And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.
²⁶ Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the LORD binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.
²⁷ Behold, the name of the LORD comes from afar, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke; his lips are full of fury, and his tongue is like a devouring fire;
²⁸ his breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck; to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction, and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads astray.
²⁹ You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel.
³⁰ And the LORD will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and storm and hailstones.
³¹ The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the LORD, when he strikes with his rod.
³² And every stroke of the appointed staff that the LORD lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres. Battling with brandished arm, he will fight with them.
³³ For a burning place has long been prepared; indeed, for the king it is made ready, its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.
¹ Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the LORD!
² And yet he is wise and brings disaster; he does not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.
³ The Egyptians are man, and not God, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD stretches out his hand, the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall, and they will all perish together.
⁴ For thus the LORD said to me, “As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey, and when a band of shepherds is called out against him he is not terrified by their shouting or daunted at their noise, so the LORD of hosts will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on its hill.
⁵ Like birds hovering, so the LORD of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it; he will spare and rescue it.”
⁶ Turn to him from whom people have deeply revolted, O children of Israel.
⁷ For in that day everyone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you.
⁸ “And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man; and a sword, not of man, shall devour him; and he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be put to forced labor.
⁹ His rock shall pass away in terror, and his officers desert the standard in panic,” declares the LORD, whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.
¹ Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice.
² Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.
³ Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention.
⁴ The heart of the hasty will understand and know, and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly.
⁵ The fool will no more be called noble, nor the scoundrel said to be honorable.
⁶ For the fool speaks folly, and his heart is busy with iniquity, to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning the LORD, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied, and to deprive the thirsty of drink.
⁷ As for the scoundrel—his devices are evil; he plans wicked schemes to ruin the poor with lying words, even when the plea of the needy is right.
⁸ But he who is noble plans noble things, and on noble things he stands.
⁹ Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech.
¹⁰ In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women; for the grape harvest fails, the fruit harvest will not come.
¹¹ Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and tie sackcloth around your waist.
¹² Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,
¹³ for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers, yes, for all the joyous houses in the exultant city.
¹⁴ For the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks;
¹⁵ until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.
¹⁶ Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
¹⁷ And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.
¹⁸ My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.
¹⁹ And it will hail when the forest falls down, and the city will be utterly laid low.
²⁰ Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.
¹ Ah, you destroyer, who yourself have not been destroyed, you traitor, whom none has betrayed! When you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betraying, they will betray you.
² O LORD, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble.
³ At the tumultuous noise peoples flee; when you lift yourself up, nations are scattered,
⁴ and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers; as locusts leap, it is leapt upon.
⁵ The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness,
⁶ and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is Zion’s treasure.
⁷ Behold, their heroes cry in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly.
⁸ The highways lie waste; the traveler ceases. Covenants are broken; cities are despised; there is no regard for man.
⁹ The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is confounded and withers away; Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.
¹⁰ “Now I will arise,” says the LORD, “now I will lift myself up; now I will be exalted.
¹¹ You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble; your breath is a fire that will consume you.
¹² And the peoples will be as if burned to lime, like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”
¹³ Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge my might.
¹⁴ The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”
¹⁵ He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil,
¹⁶ he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him; his water will be sure.
¹⁷ Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar.
¹⁸ Your heart will muse on the terror: “Where is he who counted, where is he who weighed the tribute? Where is he who counted the towers?”
¹⁹ You will see no more the insolent people, the people of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend, stammering in a tongue that you cannot understand.
²⁰ Behold Zion, the city of our appointed feasts! Your eyes will see Jerusalem, an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent, whose stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of its cords be broken.
²¹ But there the LORD in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars can go, nor majestic ship can pass.
²² For the LORD is our judge; the LORD is our lawgiver; the LORD is our king; he will save us.
²³ Your cords hang loose; they cannot hold the mast firm in its place or keep the sail spread out. Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided; even the lame will take the prey.
²⁴ And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”; the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.
¹ Draw near, O nations, to hear, and give attention, O peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that comes from it.
² For the LORD is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their host; he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over for slaughter.
³ Their slain shall be cast out, and the stench of their corpses shall rise; the mountains shall flow with their blood.
⁴ All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree. (ESV)

¹ Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals.
² And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?”
³ And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it,
⁴ and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.
⁵ And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
⁶ And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
⁷ And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.
⁸ And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
⁹ And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,
¹⁰ and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”
¹¹ Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands,
¹² saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”
¹³ And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
¹⁴ And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped. (ESV)

⁶⁸ Some of the heads of families, when they came to the house of the LORD that is in Jerusalem, made freewill offerings for the house of God, to erect it on its site.
⁶⁹ According to their ability they gave to the treasury of the work 61,000 darics of gold, 5,000 minas of silver, and 100 priests’ garments.
⁷⁰ Now the priests, the Levites, some of the people, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the temple servants lived in their towns, and all the rest of Israel in their towns.

¹ When the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem.
² Then arose Jeshua the son of Jozadak, with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel with his kinsmen, and they built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.
³ They set the altar in its place, for fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, burnt offerings morning and evening.
⁴ And they kept the Feast of Booths, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the rule, as each day required,
⁵ and after that the regular burnt offerings, the offerings at the new moon and at all the appointed feasts of the LORD, and the offerings of everyone who made a freewill offering to the LORD.
⁶ From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD. But the foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid.
⁷ So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food, drink, and oil to the Sidonians and the Tyrians to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had from Cyrus king of Persia.
⁸ Now in the second year after their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak made a beginning, together with the rest of their kinsmen, the priests and the Levites and all who had come to Jerusalem from the captivity. They appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to supervise the work of the house of the LORD.
⁹ And Jeshua with his sons and his brothers, and Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together supervised the workmen in the house of God, along with the sons of Henadad and the Levites, their sons and brothers.
¹⁰ And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the LORD, according to the directions of David king of Israel.
¹¹ And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.” And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.
¹² But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy,
¹³ so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.

¹ Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple to the LORD, the God of Israel,
² they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ houses and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here.”
³ But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the LORD, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.”
⁴ Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build
⁵ and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia. (ESV)

¹³ Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God,
¹⁴ saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”
¹⁵ So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind.
¹⁶ The number of mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number.
¹⁷ And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths.
¹⁸ By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths.
¹⁹ For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound.
²⁰ The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk,
²¹ nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

¹ Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire.
² He had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land,
³ and called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring. When he called out, the seven thunders sounded.
⁴ And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.”
⁵ And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven
⁶ and swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there would be no more delay,
⁷ but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.
⁸ Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, “Go, take the scroll that is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.”
⁹ So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll. And he said to me, “Take and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.”
¹⁰ And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it. It was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter.
¹¹ And I was told, “You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.” (ESV)

²⁴ Four things on earth are small, but they are exceedingly wise:
²⁵ the ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in the summer;
²⁶ the rock badgers are a people not mighty, yet they make their homes in the cliffs;
²⁷ the locusts have no king, yet all of them march in rank;
²⁸ the lizard you can take in your hands, yet it is in kings’ palaces.
²⁹ Three things are stately in their tread; four are stately in their stride:
³⁰ the lion, which is mightiest among beasts and does not turn back before any;
³¹ the strutting rooster, the he-goat, and a king whose army is with him.
³² If you have been foolish, exalting yourself, or if you have been devising evil, put your hand on your mouth.
³³ For pressing milk produces curds, pressing the nose produces blood, and pressing anger produces strife. (ESV)